It's about that night Owen cut my gut, put in a Ruby and spoke
herpes to me. It's about Number  how it is everywhere
anywhere. It's about that night Owen chewed off my left hand
and grew a spider for me; that night Owen chewed off my left
leg. It starts in a car but ends in a bath, somehow. There's an
eel in there too, in my mouth, twice. Owen's a painter, he
paints realities, believed implicitly. His voice was so clear I
don't remember a thing he said. Owen is my gunkMother. I'm
his baby. By the end I always feel dead.

I drink his word sounds  liquid sand suspended air in take. A bloated eel decomposes
inside this evolutionary vessel, a tongue turns in my mouth. My left hand and foot waver.
Each pore a vital interruption in the veneer. I scrutinise the integrity of my composition.

His spiders leap across the room drinking in the sounds emanating from the stone
under my skin  rearing up  the curvature of their heads caught in the light from his eyes
strike fire fucked fangs into my severed wrist create me a new spider hand grafted
to my body baby by Owen the gunkMother.

Owen feeds a new space freshly ground Jasmine flesh  the pigment of white. He offers
me a bloom, pale lips speaking scent with out breath. Around me Porcelain grows cold.
My left spider is crying, trying to climb out of this bath. Vermilion Rubies flow from me
rattling down the drain.

About Gareth Jenkins

Gareth Jenkins is a poet, artist and researcher. He curates public programs across the nine inner city Sydney libraries. Previous creative work has appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Rattapallax, The Drunken Boat, Rabbit Poetry Journal, Mascara Literary Review, Tincture Journal, The Last Vispo anthology and VLAK: Contemporary Poetics and the Arts.